Epsilon
by Demented Inu
Summary: A 50-word, one-sentence prompt. Each snippet is a sentence long, with 50 stories to tell.


A/N: This is a 50-word one-sentence prompt from LiveJournal. Pairings include Matt/Mello, Mello/Near, and L/Light. And canonical Light/Misa.

**MOTION**

Mello can move with grace, when he wants; the way his girlish body leans casually back in expensive chairs, the manner in which those hands unwrap bars of solid addiction – these are the things that leave Matt entranced.

**COOL**

The air outside of the musty building is cool as it settles on the exposed skin, and when Matt comes up to wrap his arms around Mello's waist, all he can concentrate on is the way Matt's now ungloved hands warm him up again.

**YOUNG**

Every once in a while, Light thinks that Ryuzaki is really too young to be the true L; he changes his mind each time he looks at the bags beneath bottomless eyes, each time he notices the way Ryuzaki's fingers looks anxious for touch, and thinks that Ryuzaki is a lot older than his age allows him to be.

**LAST**

When it comes to chocolate, Matt often tells Mello to make it last, to savor it instead of wolfing it down like a starving man; when it comes to Matt himself, Mello can't help but lazily run his fingers through soft red hair, savoring every little moment and making each touch last a lifetime.

**WRONG**

Ryuzaki takes a shuddering breath, fingers knotted in a perfect suit or in brown hair, and a part of him knows that he's failed – Kira has won, Light Yagami has overpowered him and made him succumb to the power of the Death Note – but even as his eyes drift closed, he can think of only one thing: "I wasn't wrong."

**GENTLE**

Matt likes to trace the feminine curve of Mello's face with his fingertips in those quiet, gentle moments when the war doesn't exist, when the Death Note is forgotten, and when Matt pretends that everything will be okay.

**ONE**

His skin tingles slightly with anticipation when Light comes ever closer, that same challenging expression on his smug face, but L simply looks for the innocence in brown eyes, the one thing keeping him from giving up completely.

**THOUSAND**

There are a thousand things that Matsuda wants to ask, a thousand words on the tip of his tongue as he watches L at work; but his heart sinks when the brilliant Ryuzaki asks him to fetch a cup of coffee.

**KING**

Her heart is easily won by power and by those that believe in justice, and in her eyes, Light is like a king already; and foolish Misa Amane struggles to be good enough, smart enough, perfect enough, so that maybe someday, Light will make her his queen.

**LEARN**

There are days when Matt feels like he's fallen behind; he catches up to Mello through touch, by re-learning the sensation of skin on skin, feeling the silkiness of blond hair through his fingers, and memorizing the rough plastic texture of each and every scar.

**BLUR**

When Matt dies, he is all too real and tangible even from the distance of the car; days later, he is like a ghost that Mello can almost reach out and touch; weeks pass, and Matt is only a blur in Mello's peripheral vision.

**WAIT**

"I would die for you," Matt once whispered, in the heat of the night as he'd held Mello's body close to his own; and at the makeshift ceremony held in the back of their building, Mello pressed his face in his hands and finally replied, "I would wait."

**CHANGE**

Ryuzaki is confused for the first time since he can remember as he watches the change from coldness to innocence in the course of a second; later, as he allows Light to touch his hair through the thickness of a towel after a storm, he realizes that the change wasn't in Light, but in himself.

**COMMAND**

Mello's voice is sharp even when he doesn't mean for it to be, and he can't help but hate himself a little as Matt takes every command with that same broken smile.

**HOLD**

When it begins, Near is young and confused with his desire to simply be held in Mello's arms; when it ends, Near is overcome with regret that he'd never gotten the chance to hold Mello's body to his own.

**NEED**

Matt struggles with a powerful addiction – the pure rush of nicotine in his lungs, the boyish excitement of a colorful game screen, and then there's the purely sensual addiction of Mello's skin.

**VISION**

Light used to believe that he could easily defeat the genius that was L; now, as his lungs labor for oxygen on the floor of a forgotten building, he looks up and he can swear that he sees faded blue jeans, a quarter-sleeve white shirt, and feathered raven hair – and he realizes that he could never have escaped, no matter how hard he fought.

**ATTENTION**

When one is isolated from society for countless years with nothing but computer monitors for company, one learns to pay attention to the little things, like the look of panic in deep brown eyes or the way perfect fingers nervously adjust an expensive tie.

**SOUL**

Before meeting Ryuk, L had never believed in souls; now, as Ryuzaki's hands clasp tightly in clean-cut hair as that final rush is reached, he comes to the conclusion that souls must exist, and they are dangerous and unnecessary things.

**PICTURE**

After years of boiling hatred and rivalry, after endless months of promising otherwise, he returns to Near, demanding his picture back; in retrospect, as he remembers the way his heart had skipped at the sight of those too-familiar eyes, he admits to himself that the photograph was only an excuse.

**FOOL**

He knew it was foolish from the moment his hands slipped up the back of Mello's shirt, but what good was being so close if he couldn't be a little foolish now and again?

**MAD**

Sometimes the pressure of it was so much that Ryuzaki thought he was going to go mad from it all, but he had to change his mind each time the news came on to show people madder than he was locked securely behind bars.

**CHILD**

Matsuda often acts like a kid, or at least he did in the past – to him, everything was a joke, something to laugh about when times were dark – but then all of that childlike innocence disappeared in the pull of a trigger.

**NOW**

He is as spoiled now as he was back then, and Matt can't help but suppress a smile when Mello gasps out, "I need you, Matt… *now*."

**SHADOW**

Mello had never believed in Peter Pan, but he knew what it was like to be missing half of yourself; Matt had been his shadow, his fairy light, and Mello hadn't believed.

**GOODBYE**

He often told himself that Wammy's House was a personal hell, that he hated it and everything associated with it; but as he bid farewell to Roger, as he left the place without looking back, he felt as if he was walking away from everything he might have been.

**HIDE**

When the odds were against him, Mello would consume twice his weight in chocolate; when he grew confused with situations, he would clam up and refuse to speak for sometimes days at a time; and when he would feel conflicted about his own emotions, he would sit splayed-legged in his seat and hide behind a glare.

**FORTUNE**

Matt has never believed in "luck", under any circumstances; it's when Mello pulls him forward to press their mouths together that Matt thinks maybe there are such things as coincidences leaning in his favor.

**SAFE**

It's a rare moment when Mello's body is filled with warmth, and he feels like a valuable jewel whenever Matt cradles him to the safety of that flat body.

**GHOST**

He finds a bizarre sort of comfort in his work (which has become merely a chore for him lately), or else in his desserts (which have turned unappealing over the past few weeks); and when he tries with difficulty to discovery himself in every drop of rain, all he sees are the ghosts of his failures and all he can hear is the tolling of bells.

**BOOK**

Near is young and… not as fragile as people think he is; he gets along by being closed to emotion, cold and calculating, while Mello is warm and open like a book held in soft, caring hands.

**EYE**

Between the two of them, it's always a raging fight, like a tornado swirling around them with every cruel word or challenge; and Mello curls up next to Near in the middle of the night for that feeling of calm, lets Near hold him, in the eye of their storm.

**NEVER**

L has never had real friends, only his computer screen and Watari's professional company; he has never known the joy of childhood, even while at the orphanage; he has never simply been held in a parent's embrace; and he has never been so in love as he is when Light shows him all that he's never known.

**SING**

Mello struggles, for once, not to feel anything when he watches the monitor trace the events of Matt's death – all blood and bullets and crooked orange goggles – but his emotions fail him as his heart sinks, as his eyes well with tears, as he swears he can hear the drunken singing of underage children in the back of his mind; and Matt is dead.

**SUDDEN**

Light is obsessed over the idea of L's actions – constantly planning, doing calculations in his head on outcomes and circumstances – but just when he thinks he has every move planned out, L takes him by surprise by pulling him forward and pressing his mouth to his.

**STOP**

It's a sadistic game he plays with himself, like a one-sided cat-and-mouse, and when Matt traces the feminine curve of Mello's face, the latter only pushes away and whispers – "Stop."

**TIME**

It's colder in Wammy's House than Ryuzaki remembers, and the faces of the children are almost unfamiliar to him now; Mello's angry voice and Near's cold and calculating nature are the only things that have kept with time.

**WASH**

Matt spends a long time in the shower, Mello notices; when he angrily questions why all the hot water is gone, Matt only replies that he needed to wash away the sins.

**TORN**

It's been years since Near has laid eyes on his oldest friend, his oldest enemy; with the violent scar marring the still-beautiful face, Mello seemed a little more intimidating, a little more torn.

**HISTORY**

In the dawn of the Kira investigation, when L realizes that Light is the culprit that he's been looking for, he thinks of how odd it is to have so much tension with someone he's never even seen.

**POWER**

Like L, Mello had learned the way to think; also like L, Mello had learned that losing is simply not an option, although Matt doubts that Ryuzaki intended for Mello to become so hungry for control.

**BOTHER**

Misa tries to be perfect to gain Light's approval, not only because he is Kira, but because she loves him; he says that her constant banter on love annoys him, but that is simply something she can never change.

**GOD**

Mikami had never before believed in someone that had the power to eliminate the wrong; when his eyes fell on the Death Note for the first time and understanding came over him, he felt he had been chosen by God himself.

**WALL**

When they were very small, Mello thought that there was something wrong with Near; now he realizes that Near just shut himself off from the world, blocking out the inferior with an emotionless wall.

**NAKED**

When Light clutches at his side on the floor of the warehouse and his mouth falls open in horror when his hand comes back red – he's lost, he's lost and L won and his entire world is lost now – he feels exposed and defeated and like the entire game had been for nothing.

**DRIVE**

Matt doesn't understand it, this rush of adrenalin whenever he gets behind a steering wheel; like his cigarettes, like his video games, he supposes that driving offers a means of escape.

**HARM**

On more than one occasion, Mello has called Matt a masochist, and Matt's beginning to believe that he's right; why else does he come crawling back to Mello, if not for that rush of emotional pain?

**PRECIOUS**

He'd spent so many years in the shadow that he was beginning to feel worthless, nothing done ever good enough to meet Wammy standards, but Matt sees him like he's a jewel, like something worth the world, and sometimes that's just enough to keep him going.

**HUNGER**

Ryuzaki wonders sometimes why he bothers trying, then reminds himself of the core-deep hunger for justice – he can't let Kira win.

**BELIEVE**

Love had never existed for him before, but when Matt first offered his hand when they met, Mello believed that maybe a deep, deep friendship would suffice.


End file.
